Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Meet the Seller - Marianne from Gretel's Gingerbread

If you have been coming to the Devonport Craft Market for a while you will have come across Marianne from Gretel's Gingerbread. Marianne has been making and selling her amazing Swiss German style gingerbread specialities and other European style goodies (with a Kiwi Twist) at the market for over a year.

Marianne grew up on a Heidi style farm in Switzerland which turned her into a person who wanted to make stuff!

Inspired, Marianne decided to do an apprenticeship as a pastry chef and completed it with success after 3 years. One qualified, Marianne worked as a pastry chef in the French speaking and in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland and then decided that she needed to learn English which brought her to the U.S.A as a nanny. Marianne's time as nanny inspired her to further her career by going back to school. After completing a business degree, she worked in the travel industry for 8 years where she was able to use her language skills.

Being a challenge driven person, Marianne decided to expand her horizon's and make a big move to New Zealand where she worked in sales and marketing before setting up Gretel's Gingerbread 4 years ago. Running Gretel's Gingerbread gives Marianne the opportunity to use her cooking skills together with her business and people skills to make her customers happy with her delectable treats.